Geezer Graduate

Saturday, July 27, 2013

Interesting PBS program about Viking swords. Of the 44 inspected in modern times, 33 were fake. The fake ones were spelled incorrectly. (The last "+" was in the wrong spot.) They also had about 1/3 the carbon of the real ones, making them brittle.

"In a world of mud and trees and rock, you have the polished metal. And that was different."

I love near the end, how the letters appear, seemingly through magic, after the acid wash. Amazing, what some dude in Wisconsin can make. (Only $7,500, if you're interested.)

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Friday, February 22, 2013

Everyone needs a Concert Lighter. That is, a lighter used just for concerts. I'll confess to taking this one to work. (I needed to shrink some "heat shrink" material, and thought this would be a cool way to do it.)
But this puppy is for special occasions. After a quick stop to pick up fluid and flints, I'm on my way to the Dead Sara / Muse show tomorrow.
No one I work with has ever heard of D.S. Most have never heard of Muse.
WTF?
Anyway, here's the embed for Dead Sara's version of Janis Joplin's "Blue Was the Feeling For You."

Monday, December 24, 2012

When Saul of Tarsus set out on his journey to Damascus, the whole of the known world lay in bondage. There was one state, and it was Rome. There was one master for it all, and he was Tiberius Caesar.

Everywhere there was civil order, for the arm of the Roman law was long. Everywhere there was stability, in government and in society, for the centurions saw that it was so.

But everywhere there was something else, too. There was oppression—for those who were not the friends of Tiberius Caesar. There was the tax gatherer to take the grain from the fields and the flax from the spindle to feed the legions or to fill the hungry treasury from which divine Caesar gave largess to the people. There was the impressor to find recruits for the circuses. There were executioners to quiet those whom the Emperor proscribed. What was a man for but to serve Caesar?

There was the persecution of men who dared think differently, who heard strange voices or read strange manuscripts. There was enslavement of men whose tribes came not from Rome, disdain for those who did not have the familiar visage. And most of all, there was everywhere a contempt for human life. What, to the strong, was one man more or less in a crowded world?

Then, of a sudden, there was a light in the world, and a man from Galilee saying, Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's.

And the voice from Galilee, which would defy Caesar, offered a new Kingdom in which each man could walk upright and bow to none but his God. Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. And he sent this gospel of the Kingdom of Man into the uttermost ends of the earth.

So the light came into the world and the men who lived in darkness were afraid, and they tried to lower a curtain so that man would still believe salvation lay with the leaders.

But it came to pass for a while in diverse places that the truth did set man free, although the men of darkness were offended and they tried to put out the light. The voice said, Haste ye. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness come upon you, for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth.

Along the road to Damascus the light shone brightly. But afterward Paul of Tarsus, too, was sore afraid. He feared that other Caesars, other prophets, might one day persuade men that man was nothing save a servant unto them, that men might yield up their birthright from God for pottage and walk no more in freedom.

Then might it come to pass that darkness would settle again over the lands and there would be a burning of books and men would think only of what they should eat and what they should wear, and would give heed only to new Caesars and to false prophets. Then might it come to pass that men would not look upward to see even a winter's star in the East, and once more, there would be no light at all in the darkness.

And so Paul, the apostle of the Son of Man, spoke to his brethren, the Galatians, the words he would have us remember afterward in each of the years of his Lord:

Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

This editorial was written in 1949 by the late Vermont Roysterand has been published annually since.

A version of this article appeared December 24, 2012, on page A12 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: In Hoc Anno Domini.